Hamburger Hill

摘要

Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill have ordered another potentially fruitless "super committee" showdown by Dec. 13. It will be followed Jan. 15, 2014, with another ad hoc deadline to keep the government open, and then again Feb. 7 to have the congressionally-mandated debt ceiling raised once more. The new dates were established by the Oct. 16 law to reopen the U.S. government and avoid defaulting on the country's debt to date. The last-minute law resolved none of the entrenched budget disagreements, however, which means the new deadlines renew the promise and peril of readdressing widespread, automatic cuts known as sequestration, as well as ratcheting up the budget anxiety already infecting the Pentagon, NASA, FAA and their industrial bases.